A Doubter's Almanac - Large Print Edition by Thorndike Press | Gripping Literary Fiction for Book Clubs & Thoughtful Readers

I finished A Doubter’s Almanac (Ethan Canin) several days ago. I liked it a lot, even though there were many, many details I did not understand fully, and many that seemed to me inconsequential to the overall progression of the story. This was a book I will remember, a book that would influence me forever, the way The Life of Pi did. I felt it was of epochal significance, to me at least, because I have always liked books and movies that present/discuss the role and struggle of geniuses. I read parts of the book while on travel through Eastern Europe (which might explain the scenes I found less significant or not clear, having read them while falling asleep in the evening, or in a hurry while waiting for my wife to go to breakfast). I discussed the book with a friend who traveled with us and who was very smart and passionate about artificial intelligence. By nature of his profession he had to understand mathematics. He confessed he wasn’t versed in advanced levels of math (calculus, geometry) where the limits between the three-dimensional world and imagination are blurred and one has to go into the remote abstract that causes most of us to be lost or at best uncomfortable; but he suggested that when he writes code he sees it in his mind, physically, three-dimensionally. Like Mozart writing music, he told me; like Milo Andret, the protagonist in the book. I imagined brightly colored squiggly lines and geometrical figures dancing inside their brains like rainwater shining in the grass. I told my friend I remember Amadeus (the movie) and fear I will always be a Saliery. (Later I thought of other movies on similar subjects, in particular Good Will Hunting; the moment Matt Damon humiliates his math mentor by telling him how easy it had been to solve a particular problem that had preoccupied the entire math department for years, or when he answers Robin Williams’ question about whether he had any friends by spitting out with machine gun rhythmicity names of philosophers and writers so great and influential that my mouth fell open, unable to repeat their names after him, let alone read them, understand them and consider them my friends.)What I liked in the book was the three-generation family drama. It often touched me to the core. I liked the conflict between the despicable personality of Milo Andret and the inexplicable desire as a reader to root for him. I liked the dialogue and the descriptions of nature. I liked the simple (because I could understand them) examples of how the mind of genius mathematicians work, like being able to multiply three three-digit numbers in their heads, or outthinking a computer, or the fact that at age 28 they are already too old, or that a real mathematician could read and master how to use Fortran, Pascal and C++ during a single overnight flight from New York to Stockholm. I went on line and checked out a few of the names of mathematicians referenced in the book and felt lost right away in trying to understand their theories and contributions (while I pride myself with having liked advanced algebra and calculus in high school and college, I couldn’t understand the first thing about their mathematical formulae).All in all, the book taught me humility.I read an interview with the author, by Clifton Spargo in The Huffington Post. By profession, Ethan is a physician. He went to Harvard Medical School. The Malosz conjuncture is his invention. It took him seven years to write the novel and he went through eleven drafts. That brings it closer to me – makes it possible. I like to find out that the others struggle as well to get things done, to get novels finished, to bring things as close to perfection as possible.A brilliant book about the mind and miserable life of a brilliant mathematician.